from eden
by hashtagartistlife
Summary: Innocence died screaming / honey ask me, I should know. / I slithered here from Eden / just to sit outside your door. [Ichiruki] [686 compliant]


**Written for deathberryprompts' weekly prompt, 'queen'. Title and lyrics in the summary are taken from Hozier's 'From Eden'.**

* * *

 **From Eden**

by _hashtagartistlife_

The next time Rukia sits _jinzen_ (the first time in a while), she is surprised to find that her zanpakutou spirit wears a crown of bone.

Not of ice, but bone. "Why this?" is the first thing she asks, reaching up to tap pensive fingers against the ornament; but before she can feel the brittle texture of it underneath her fingertips, Shirayuki intercepts her wrist with a grip like morning frost.

"He is coming," she hisses, and Rukia jerks back as tendrils of ice snake their way up her arm. "He is coming, he is _coming—_ I cannot stop him, Rukia."

"Stop who? _Who_ is coming?" Ice should not frighten her, not after all these years— but Rukia cannot help the rising panic as the ice grows over her shoulder, encases the side of her neck in a beautiful and deadly brace. She can feel frost forming on her eyelashes. "Shirayuki, _let go!"_

She does not; instead, the zanpakutou spirits pulls Rukia closer, so that her bloodless lips are right by Rukia's ear. The ice starts flowering, bursts and sprays of petals with razor edges; and for the first time Rukia realises the fear of being buried alive, of being swallowed whole by her own ice and laid to rest amidst the pine trees of her soulscape.

"Rukia," her sword whispers into her skin, "have you been dreaming lately?"

And then the ice shatters.

* * *

When Rukia opens her eyes, she's back in her room. She is no stranger to being forcibly pushed out of her own mind, but this hasn't happened to her in years. It _shouldn't_ be happening to her now, not if she's obtained bankai _;_ there should be no corners of her soul that catch her off-guard any more.

And yet—

She turns her head, to face the half-length mirror against her dresser; there, woven into the long strands of her hair, are the remnants of her bankai crown.

As she watches her reflection, the ice shards crumble and disappear; the only thing that lingers is a trace of a pitch-black reiatsu, like an afterthought of smoke on the wind.

* * *

Rukia doesn't dream that night. Instead, she hears _laughter,_ skirting round the edges of her consciousness as she sinks and rises atop the tides of sleep. She thinks, maybe, that it sounds a little like Kaien; she thinks, maybe, that it might be tinged yellow and gold and bone-white. She's never heard it before in her life.

She thinks, maybe, that it sounds _familiar._

* * *

Ichigo is the same as ever, hair cut short and clean-shaven, a carefully cultivated mildness across his features. She drops Ichika off at his place for her customary playdate with a customary greeting and smile, and Ichigo receives her with a customary nod and a customary enquiry after the state of the others. After the exchange, it's time for her to leave; Ichika usually stays the night with the Kurosakis.

Something makes her hesitate. She catches the sleeve of Ichigo's shirt as he says goodbye.

"Ichi— I mean, _Kurosaki_ —" his surname has never sat quite right against her tongue, not the way his first name did— "Do you— have you been— have you been _dreaming_ lately?"

He looks at her blankly. She uncurls her fingers from the fabric of his shirt, one at a time.

"No," he tells her eventually. "I haven't dreamt in over ten years, Ru— _Kuchiki."_

The unsaid 'since I've lost my powers' is louder than a bell tolling; suddenly, Rukia can't meet his eyes, can't lift her head for the shame and guilt bowing her spine. Ichigo has never once been resentful, but that, perhaps, has been the most pointed protest of all.

In the back of her mind, snow stirs; white against thick black. Rukia lets Ichigo walk away.

* * *

 _He is coming, Rukia. He is coming—_

 ** _Who_** _is coming?_

* * *

The second spike of unidentified reiatsu in ten years sends Soul Society into a frenzy, even more so than the first time. Yhwach had been absolutely, undeniably, _100%-for-real-this-time_ defeated; even Urahara had said so. After a lengthy examination of Kazui and Ichika both, not to mention a thorough investigation of the Quincy King's corpse held in the Royal Realm, everybody had concluded that this time he was gone for good. The spike in reiatsu was simply the last vestiges of his power, making a final, futile stand.

So when the new spike of reiatsu bears an alarming resemblance to the reiatsu of their greatest enemy, Soul Society goes straight into wartime sanctions. A Captain's meeting is called; the Lieutenants are sent to defend the borders of the Seireitei, to rally troops in preparation for any possibility. Rukia hastily bids Renji goodbye at the door as they go opposite directions. Ichika is safe at the Kuchiki Manor for now.

There is something rising in her, something restless and flighty; something that tugs on her stomach and makes her feet frantic as she runs through the Seireitei streets. If she could visit her soulscape today, she knows it would be storming. She feels like a livewire, static and ozone burning through her mind; she doesn't understand _why._

There's the taste of barely repressed thunder on her tongue as she enters the Captain-Commander's barracks and assumes her position. She already knows what the meeting is about; word filters down relatively quickly throughout the Divisions these days. Twelfth Division is only a scant distance away from both Sixth and Thirteenth. She knows there's a large body of unidentified reiatsu moving towards the Seireitei with alarming speed; at first, so faint that only the sensors could pick it up, but already it is close enough that she can feel it pressing along the seams of her consciousness with a lover's insistence. Dense and heavy and somehow…. _sticky._ Rukia shakes her head and wills herself to ignore it, to focus on the Captain-Commander's words.

But that's easier said than done when the reiatsu gets denser and heavier with every passing half-second; it's closer and _closer_ and close enough now that she can feel it as a physical presence, trying to weigh her down to her knees. If it's this close already then this was no time to be standing around _discussing;_ could no-one else feel it? She opens her mouth to address the issue, but her tongue feels coated in tar. Nothing comes out from between her lips—

The doors blow off their hinges.

The man that steps out from between their wreckage is tall and familiar in all the wrong ways; bone white skin stretched over angled cheekbones and the jut of a stubborn jaw, spiky, unruly hair grown out long and black to the floor like an oil spill. Eyes with black sclera and gold irises, that once gleamed behind a mask striped with red. He wears the tattered remains of a Quincy uniform, and a sword as long as he is tall is strapped to his back.

The snowstorm in her mind sighs—

"I— chi— go—?"

The man turns to look at her, and smiles; the lazy curl of his lips is unfamiliar in all the right ways.

"Close, sweetheart," he rasps, and Rukia's hand clenches around her sword out of pure instinct; "but no dice." He turns to face the Captain-Commander, who by now has drawn Katen Kyokotsu; though neither of the men lose their easygoing smiles. The newcomer inclines his head.

"Well, I think it's very clear by now that you _aren't_ Ichigo-kun, no matter how much you may look like him," Kyoraku says lightly. He shifts his grip on Kyokotsu. "Who are you? What do you want?"

The thing-that-is-not-Ichigo throws his head back and _laughs;_ with a start, Rukia recognises the unbalanced, yellow-gold-bone tinted edge to the sound. She'd thought it had sounded like Kaien before. She sees now why she made that comparison.

It doesn't sound like Kaien.

It sounds like a _hollow._

Not-Ichigo makes a show of wiping imaginary tears from his eyes. The entire room bar he and Rukia have drawn their swords now. Rukia knows it's useless anyway; things are clicking into place. This man, he…

"Why, I'm the Soul King," he says, and Rukia knows the next words out of his mouth before she hears them being uttered. He turns to her, and offers her his hand; there's a bone crown upon his head, the same one that Shirayuki had worn. The leer he wears is terrifyingly sincere. "And as for what I want—"

 _He is coming, he is coming—_

 ** _for you._**

"I'm here for my _Queen."_


End file.
